Nairobi TICAD summit opens today

  August 27, 2016

VIOLET MENGO
 
 

Kenyan

THE Sixth Tokyo International Conference on Africa’s Development (TICAD VI) two-day summit opens today at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in

It is the first time that TICAD is being held in Africa since its inception in 1993, a great honour and privilege in itself.

The decision to host the summit in Africa was made during the last meeting in 2013 when it was agreed that the venue of the subsequent TICAD summits be alternated between Japan and Africa. The interval of summit meetings was also shortened from every five years to three years.

TICAD was launched in 1993 by Japan to promote Africa’s development, peace and security through strengthening of relations in multilateral co-operation and partnership.

It came at a time when aid fatigue had become apparent and its launch was therefore catalytic for refocusing international attention on Africa’s development needs.

Indeed, in the course of the past 20 years, TICAD has evolved into a major global and multilateral forum for mobilising and sustaining international support for Africa’s development under the principles of African “ownership” and international “partnership”.

The forum brings together leading industrialists, top business executives and heads of business associations from Africa and Japan.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and various African heads of State and Government are expected to attend.

Holding the meeting, which is as a result of Japan’s collaboration with the African Union Commission and the World Bank, clearly demonstrates growing African ownership in the conference process. It has been attracting much attention from African states and other international organisations including the United Nations (UN) Systems and regional organisations.

The Nairobi conference is taking place at an opportune time; 2016 is the first year of the implementation of the global and regional development agendas – the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063 and its first 10-year implementation plan.

In line with these development agendas, the Nairobi meeting will discuss some thematic issues that Africa has been facing since the TICAD-V in Yokohama, Japan, in 2013. These issues include industrialisation, health and social stability, among others.

Further, taking into consideration the growing role that the private sector plays in promoting socio-economic development, the conference will feature the private sector from Africa and Japan.

The meeting is also expected to review the Yokohama Declaration of 2013 to 2017 which focused on robust and sustainable economy, inclusive and resilient society, and peace and stability.

At that meeting, six priority areas were agreed upon in the declaration that was adopted. These are promoting private sector led growth, accelerating infrastructure development, empowering farmers as mainstream economic actors, promoting sustainable and resilient growth, creating an inclusive society for growth as well as consolidating peace, stability and good governance.

During the last meeting, Prime Minister Abe announced that over the following five years, Japan would support Africa’s growth through public and private resources worth about US$32 billion including approximately US$14 billion of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and around US$16 billion from other public and private resources.

Under this package, the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) was mandated to implement the Yokohama Declaration 2013 to 2017.

And JICA president Shinichi Kitaoka says the agency, which has been implementing the Yokohama Declaration, is prepared for the Nairobi conference which has attracted over 150 Japanese private companies.

“Our pre-occupation since 2013 has been working at the Yokohama Declaration resolutions and I am happy to note that the implementation in various areas has been good,” Mr Kitaoka says.
In trying to narrow the gap between Japan and Africa, JICA has been inviting African students to study in Japan through an initiative called African Business Education (ABE) which was part of the TICAD-V resolutions.

The students are offered scholarships in different fields of their interest, and upon completing their studies, they are encouraged to return to their countries and contribute to the development of their respective nations.

Mr Kitaoka says Africa is important to Japan because of trade and the continent’s stability is of paramount significance for smooth trading.

“In 20 years, Africa’s population will grow and the stability of the continent is important. We therefore have to think together and find ways or measures that will ensure stability of the continent,” he says.

During the Nairobi meeting, TICAD will also conduct various technical activities to promote them.
Otherwise, JICA has been supporting various infrastructure projects all over Africa in areas such as transport, electricity and water supply, all in line with the Yokohama Declaration.

In Zambia, the agency has been active in the health, education and agriculture sectors of the economy. It has infact supported the Chirundu and Kazungula one stop border posts shared with Zimbabwe and Botswana respectively.

The agency is expected to continue supporting Africa’s efforts of further infrastructure development to bring real benefits to the continent.

To that end, it will promote the use of renewable energy so as to reduce the burden on the environment.

Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs director general for African affairs Norio Maruyama told African journalists who visited the Asian country recently that the Nairobi meeting is significant, particularly because it is business oriented.

JICA: Facilitating Kaizen activities

August 3, 2016
 
VIOLET MENGO

Lusaka
 
AFIL Engineering Limited is a one-stop shop for high quality steel trailers, fuel and water tanks and other heavy engineering products in Lusaka.

The company is the heavy metal engineering and fabrication division of Agro-Fuel Investments which caters for industrial, agricultural and service sectors, and has been standing out among other competitors because of the Kaizen philosophy it has embraced in its operations.

Human resource and administration manager Reuben Phiri says AFIL has well equipped facilities for manufacturing and rehabilitating various types of trailers, fuel tanks, truck bodies, luggage carriers, sugar cane haulers and water bowsers.

“For all the services we provide to be effective, AFIL has been implementing Kaizen since 2009. Despite encountering some resistance at the beginning, the Kaizen concept is now embraced by all workers,” Mr Phiri says.

He adds that Kaizen has benefited AFIL in many ways including in enhancing productivity, reducing waste and safety improvement, and generally workers are now more willing to improve in their performance than before.

Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy which inspires workers and employers to improve their performance by enhancing their efficiency and creating a conducive working environment.

It aims at facilitating the process of coming up with efficient ways of performing tasks in an organisation.

The Kaizen philosophy has led to companies like those in Japan such as Toyota, to be among best producers and suppliers of commodities in the world.

In Zambia, Kaizen was first discussed in 2008 at a business seminar jointly organised by the Zambia Association of Manufacturers and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Kaizen Institute of Zambia Limited (KIZ) interim chief executive officer Chola Mwitwa says the concept of Kaizen got the attention of officials from the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) and the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry.
According to him, Kaizen was seen as a tool that could enable the ministry support the implementation of the Commercial, Trade and Industry (CTI) policy and the ZDA Act.

The ZDA Act seeks to promote the development and growth of Zambian industries that are efficient in the utilisation of their resources, enterprising, innovative and internationally competitive.

Accordingly, in 2009 the government requested Japan through JICA to widely promote Kaizen in Zambia and in 2010, JICA attached Kaizen expert Kiyoshi Adachi to ZDA, to help promote the philosophy mainly in industries and set the stage for the Kaizen project.

This, Mr Mwitwa says, culminated in the launch of the national Kaizen project in April 2014, and through this initiative, some Zambians have so far been trained and a framework for continued training of human resources was established.

The implementation of the Kaizen project in Zambia is in line with Zambia’s vision of becoming a prosperous middle income country by 2030.

To achieve this, the country has to change and improve on a number of things. Kaizen was identified as the instrument that could be used to engender the change Zambia desires.

Transformation, Mr Mwitwa says, is now at the heart of the Zambian government and Kaizen is one of the key solutions.
“According to Kaizen, some of the changes that have been implemented are waste or MUDA elimination, value enhancement and people involvement,” he says.

Because of the fact that Kaizen features include incremental, continuous improvement and involvement of the entire workforce, it is anticipated that once Zambians embrace this concept, the country will be headed for massive development in various sectors.

Kaizen focuses on the way people approach work, it shows how management and workers can change their mindset together to enhance their productivity.

To date, 37 organisations are being used as pilot institutions for on-the-job training of Zambian personnel and the results so far are impressive.

Kaizen expert on quality/productivity improvement Kanichi Moriyama says the objectives of the project are building of KIZ, development of KIZ Kaizen consultants and promotion of Kaizen activities in Zambia.

“Over the last three years, on-the-job training has resulted in much improvement at many enterprises in manufacturing, non-manufacturing and public and private sectors,” Mr Moriyama says.

The Kaizen activity improvement seen at pilot companies include the reduced rate of defective products in the manufacturing process at food processing companies from 20 to two percent.
At non-manufacturing enterprises, there is significant reduction in cargo delivery time to the customers, while in the public sector there is notable improvement in inventory management at warehouses.

Mr Moriyama says in areas where the Kaizen project is being implemented, there is keenness among enterprises to learn about their problem, and accepting suggested action for improvement with honest attitude to implement.

He says Kaizen co-ordinators are highly competent, capable of communicating with quality control circle members and top management.

“In general, enterprises in the manufacturing industry identify their problems and managers accurately understand the actual circumstances and issues to be addressed, therefore motivated to respond to those problems,” he says.

Mr Moriyama, however, notes that the major impediments to implementing Kaizen activities in Zambia include frequent cancellation of the philosophy’s deeds to companies, thereby reducing the scheduled number of visits, and negatively affecting the overall performance of the cycle.

He says some top managers and Kaizen co-ordinators showed eagerness and interest in implementing the Kaizen concept at the beginning but lost the keenness along the way, resulting in activity slowing down.

“Top management tends to think that the implementation of Kaizen is extra work that causes loss of time,” Mr Moriyama says, adding that implementation of the concept is part of daily work of any organisation.

Quality/productivity improvement expert Yoshiaki Fujita says JICA is now supporting the Kaizen activity in private and public sectors with KIZ consultants.

“The purpose is to disseminate the Kaizen philosophy and develop the implementation process in Zambia,” Mr Fujita says.

“This year, KIZ consultants and JICA experts are supporting 32 companies including the public and private sectors.”

The main purpose of JICA experts is to develop talented consultants in Zambia who can help expand the Kaizen concept to all industries in line with the country’s policy.

The Kaizen phase II project will focus on enhancing KIZ management capacity and Kaizen consultant development to sustainably disseminate the concept and the continuous provision of Kaizen consulting services that match with the needs of private and public sectors.

Chilling effect after a visit to Nagasaki

August, 8, 2016

VIOLET MENGO,  
Nagasaki

Author:Violet at Nagasaki Peace Stature

 THE bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki on the morning of August 9, 1945, killed about 74,000 people, about half as many as those who died in the bombing of Hiroshima three days earlier.

When US President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima in May, becoming the first sitting American President, since the end of World War II to do so, he told the audience, which included survivors of America’s atomic bombing, that technology as devastating as nuclear arms demands a “moral revolution”.

“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Mr Obama said.

When this writer recently visited the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, courtesy of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), she was given the opportunity to appreciate the experience, pain and anguish that many of the Japanese and other nationals experienced seven decades ago.

Nagasaki, situated on the west coast of Kyushu, Japan’s third largest island, southwest of the main island Honshu, was devastated by the second atomic bomb to be dropped on Japan.

Of course, invoking Hiroshima has become somewhat the universal shorthand for the horrors of nuclear war, and Nagasaki has mostly lived in the other city’s shadow.

But just like Hiroshima, life will never be the same for the people of Nagasaki.

It is said that since 1942, a secret US weapons programme, called the Manhattan Project, had been at work on two revolutionary bombs of such intense heat and explosive force that they would reduce the two target cities – Hiroshima and Nagasaki – to vast scorched wastelands.

This, according to some studies that have been produced, was aimed at enforcing an unconditional surrender on Japan with no advance warning issued.

  drop of water to the departed souls.

Indeed, six days later, Japan surrendered and the Pacific War was over.

But lives were already lost, property seriously damaged; it should not have happened and should never be considered ever.

While in Nagasaki, this writer learnt of the gravity of the sacrifices and hardships that the Japanese people went through as a result of the atomic bomb on their soil.

Even the people who managed to survive were left with indelible mental and physical scars and with disorders due to radiation.

Seeing from the damages caused by the atomic bomb – to humanity, property, soil, vegetation and wildlife – it is a no brainer that everyone should be working at creating a better world for all.
Fortunately, some lessons have been learnt including by the US.

In his speech after laying a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Mr Obama said the bombing of Hiroshima demonstrated that “mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.”

“The world was forever changed here, but today the children of this city will go through their day in peace… What a precious thing that is. It is worth protecting, and then extending to every child. That is a future we can choose, a future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening,” he said.

The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum is located close to Nagasaki Peace Park and next to the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for atomic bomb victims, which opened in 2003.

The museum exhibits extensive materials, both print and reproductions, on the actual bombing and latest nuclear weapons, aiming to contribute to the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realisation of lasting world peace.

The Peace Memorial Hall provides a place to pray for those who died after exposure to the atomic bombings, and to encourage people to contemplate peace.

The museum also maintains archives of materials on the atomic bombings and radiation illnesses, and serves as a centre of international cooperation and exchange.

The museum and the peace memorial hall were built to impress upon people the preciousness of the sacrifices made by those who died after exposure to the bombings, and to commemorate everlasting peace.
The museum covers the history of the atomic bomb event in the accessible form of a story.
It begins with the disastrous scene of the attack and includes the events leading up to the dropping of the atomic bomb, the reconstruction of Nagasaki up to the present day, the history of nuclear weapons development, and the hope for a peaceful world free of nuclear weapons.

The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum building was opened in 1996 to replace an earlier one built in 1955.

There are four main sections in the museum; the first introduces the city and culture of Nagasaki just before the bomb struck, the second concentrates on the damage caused by the bombing, the third section places in context the issues of war and atomic weapons, and the last section is a video room showing documentary movies related to the atomic bombing.

hypocentre of the bombing

There are also lecture halls where survivors of the attack give presentations of their experiences and conferences are held.

Photographs, documents and original objects showing the damage are displayed and can be very upsetting, especially for young children.

The graphic images show the damage caused by the heat and the subsequent fires after the explosion in Nagasaki. The Uramaki Cathedral, Nagasaki Prison and the Iwakawa-machi area are all shown in ruins.
Among the many original objects on display are melted coins, twisted school staircases, scorched stones and burnt clothing, all testifying to the havoc caused by the tremendous heat and blast of the explosion.

The wall clock displayed right at the entrance of the museum was found in a house near Sannno Shinto in Sakamoto-machi about 800 meters from the hypocentre. The clock was shattered by the blast and its hands stopped at 11:02 – the time of the blast.

When the atomic bomb exploded, thousands of people suffered terrible burns and died begging for water.

Nagasaki City, the National Council for World Peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons

an illustration of  the bomb

constructed the Fountain of Peace with donations received from all over Japan.

The Fountain of Peace is dedicated as an offering of water to the victims of the bomb and a prayer for the repose of their souls.

In honour of the departed, it was my pleasure to visit and pay my tribute to those who died due to exposure to the atomic bombings.

You are not Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ)

 August 8, 2016

VIOLET MENGO

I am not a politician nor a political analyst but I cannot hold it any more seeing people fooling themselves in the name of particular political parties. I love environment reporting and that is where my passion is.

I know many political leaders vying for different positions have not voiced out their stance on how they will improve the environment nor have they pledged environmental sustainability, none the less that is for another day.

To be a follower of a particular political part or should I

Violet Mengo. Environmental Journalist

say cadre as it is popularly known in Zambia in my understanding simply means  you belong to that team- sharing the norms, ideologies and whatever that political party believes in.

It also means that you will in the absence of not being with the party members, uphold the values of that particular party you support.

To support a particular party does not mean one has to lose their integrity and moral standing. It also does not mean that one has to look down on others as though they have nothing to offer.

All political parties participating in this 2016 elections have something to offer only that we have found ourselves associating with those that we share  similar ideologies,  and as supporters/cadres’ roles is to share the ideologies with others so they too could be convinced  to be part of that team or party.

Today is Monday, August 8, 2016 and needless to say, people in possession of voter’s card will surely be voting. However, it is wrong for anybody in their right frame of mind to declare their party winner before the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) does that… how do you know you are headed for victory? Is it the crowd misleading you? Are you convinced the people prefer your party?  Are you in the group where you are telling people to vote No/Yes to the referendum without telling them what the referendum is all about? Do you understand what exactly you want?

It is important for all of us to be wise. Cast thy vote and wait for the commission to do their job, not for you or myself to corrupt other people mind by thy shallow thinking that thy party has won.

My advice is for all of use to analyse the candidates thorough in the remaining two days, look at the pros and cons of having such a person in the highest office of the land. The one with potential of offering the Zambian people good inclusive governance, one that can be held accountable for their actions, fight corruption and better the lives of the people deserves thy vote.

Stop deceiving yourself by declaring your party winner before ECZ does that, Zambia is my country and I love it and your actions can change this peace loving country for good…. Be responsible Zambian citizen by casting your vote and encourage others to do the same.

And to the Referendum question, “Do you agree to the amendment to the Constitution to enhance the Bill of rights contained in Part III of the Constitution of Zambia and to repeal and replace Article 79 of the Constitution of Zambia?

ECZ writes that according to the Constitution of Zambia, any alteration in the Bill of Rights and article 79 requires that a referendum be held where citizens to either accept or reject relating to the Bill of Rights and article 79. The Bill of Rights is contained in part three of the Constitution of Zambia.

The Bill of Rights protects and guarantees one’s rights which include civil and political rights such as freedom of expression, movement, residence and justice.  It also contains economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. These are right to healthcare, safe clean water and decent sanitation. They also contain right to education and social protection among others. The choice is yours.